Defense Supply Center Columbus prairie boosts biodiversity

On any given day in the summer and early fall, hundreds of bees, butterflies, bumblebees, and other pollinators can be seen enjoying the three-acre prairie habitat on the north side of Defense Supply Center Columbus established by Defense Logistics Agency Installation Management - Columbus Environmental Division in 2017.

"The amount of biodiversity in our north prairie is absolutely amazing," said Nicole Goicochea, DLA Installation Management - Columbus Environmental Division chief.

Goicochea hosted a butterfly count Sept. 13 to establish a baseline of how many species the prairie habitat is supporting.

Volunteers stopped by during the two-hour count period to take stock of how many butterflies were present in the prairie while on their lunch break.

Species seen included monarch, eastern tiger swallowtail, cloudless sulphur, orange sulphur, black swallowtail and cabbage white, plus hundreds of bees, bumblebees, beetles, pollinating flies, dragonflies, damselflies and more.

Goicochea hopes to have more regular counts next season starting in the early summer into the fall and wants to include the Eagle Eye Golf Course prairie areas as well. Those areas were designated a Monarchs in the Rough site by Audubon International last year and were overseeded with milkweed, the host plant for the endangered monarch butterfly.

The prairie habitat located just west of the Army Corps of Engineers' Building 330, near the north perimeter, continuously blooms from about July to the end of September.

"Anyone can come out here at any time, walk the paths, get immersed in nature and relieve the stress of the workday," she said, noting that plans are in the works for more educational signs and perhaps a bench or two.

"Each time I come here to the prairie at lunch, I see different types of butterflies, bees and flowers…it's constantly changing all the time," she added.